


In Different Lives

by capitainpistol



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Is.... Built Into the Plot Kind Of?, Missing Scene, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Zack Snyder Levels Of Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 02:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12831810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitainpistol/pseuds/capitainpistol
Summary: "Apocrypha? What's that?""It's the parts they didn't want in the story. The parts they didn't like, that didn't fit. It's what we're looking for."





	1. Chapter 1

Superman was dead and the whole world mourned. She found some comfort in that. Not all of them were converted. Some loved him from the very beginning, like her.

 

-

 

Perry White didn’t like being ambushed by young tycoons.

 _Youngish…_ tycoons.

He kept out of Gotham for his own reasons, but you had to know what was going on if for Football Season. Bruce Wayne always pinged in the back of his mind as a young man, doing all the things he did around the world with arm-fulls of women. Lex Luthor without the psychotic vibe.

The man standing across from him was massive, as broad as he was tall. Six and a half feet at least. Gray haired. Grim looking. Staring down the 62-floor drop without so much as a blink.

Perry liked his office because of that drop. Old superstition made him interested in a person that could stare down the abyss and not be afraid.

“She may throw you outta that thing,” he said when Wayne was finished filling in the gaps in Lois's story. She was another who looked down and up and sideways in his office, leaning against the glass while others sat across from her. A move he wasn't sure she knew was a power one, but was one nonetheless. 

Miraculously, Bruce Wayne smiled. Changed his whole face. 

“Wouldn’t blame her,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

Perry went with his gut, and his gut told him he liked this kid. This... big brute of a kid. He still only had bits and pieces of the story. Her sources, she said. They wanted anonymity. But he couldn't turn down that source when he showed up in your office and happened to be one of the richest men across the harbor.

“She’s on her way with her new piece,” Perry told him. “Since she’s been doing more… conventional work she hands one in on time every day. No spelling mistakes. Barely gotta glance at it. Meets her contract requirements.”

On perfect cue, the door to Perry’s office opened. Lois barged in with the piece ahead of her. 

“Here you go, Perry. It’s better than the last one, I promise.”

Perry snatched it and cleared his throat, gesturing with a look to his first visitor.

Lois’s smile disappeared. Her hands came together. She turned the ring around and around her finger.

“I would give you two privacy but this is my office. Neutral zone. Lois,” Perry stood up, fists on his desks like a frustrated though sympathetic father. “Listen to him.”

All she could muster was a deflecting quip. “Low blow using Perry. What if he didn’t know?”

“I figured when Alfred didn’t work, everyone else was fair game,” he shot back.

“So what is this? Last resort?”

“It’s a story, Lois,” Perry intervened again. He picked up a file marked TOP SECRET in bold red letters from his desk. “As much as I appreciate –“ he leaned down and adjusted his glasses to read her copy, “Metropolis’s Centenarians. This? This is a lead. Does it matter if it’s from him?”

Lois didn’t have any superhuman powers or billions of dollars to appear to have superhuman powers, but she sensed good news when she received it.

Good _ish_ news.

“Lois,” Bruce began, stepping toward her.

Someone knocked on the glass of Perry’s office. Jenny caught their attention and pointed to the televisions. The three came out to join the city beat gathered in front of the screens, watching the aftermath of a thwarted terrorist attack in London.

Standing on the scales of Lady Justice, Lois recognized the woman she’d met briefly when Clark passed. The Amazon. Diana Prince.

Bruce’s phone rang. 

Lois grabbed the file from Perry.

Perry took off his glasses. “Another one.”

 

-

 

She dreamed of him. Others did too. Every morning she passed her long-time neighborhood vendor and saw these dreams and daydreams and wishes come to life. Superman’s Baby. Superman’s Brother. Clone Superman. Robot Superman. She saw him waking, too, on walls and on notebooks, spread across bridges, across skyscrapers. On backpacks and hats and t-shirts. She saw him everywhere, all the time. 


	2. Chapter 2

The little boy's name was Ziad and he was eleven years old. He held his mother's hand as she spoke and when she began to stutter, overwhelmed by emotion and near tears, he spoke to her in Arabic. 

“No, I'll speak English,” she responded sharply. “I _can_ speak English.”

“I can translate,” he insisted, his high voice finding some old soul gravitas.

“You can,” Lois said. “I don't mind. If it helps you tell your story better.”

The store owner, Miriam, sighed deeply, uncertain of how to proceed. Too many years of being harassed to speak English haunting her.

Lois didn't say a word, waiting for Miriam to decide. 

Miriam looked at her son.

“She's from the Planet, she wants to know what happened,” he said with urgency, pulling on her hand. “Let me translate.”

Miriam nodded and began again, this time in Arabic. Ziad listened intently, filtering his mother's words through his brain to bring them out again.

“She says things have always been tough here,” he said. “But since there have been more cops things are worse. The people who hate us, they don't care about the cops. They feel free to do what they want.”

Miriam went on. Lois did not understand the words, but she could practically cut through the passion and bitterness. Amidst her retelling of the harassment she and her son received earlier that morning one word needed no translation, the same word that made sense in every language.

“Superman,” said Ziad, sad and confused, “Now that he's gone, the bad guys can do what they want.”

The bad guys came out in droves after Superman's death, that was true, but Lois had another theory.

Luthor. 

He was the brain, the mastermind, the head. Once it was cut off the body of crime in Metropolis flurried over the scraps he left behind. 

The conspiracy theories followed her everywhere, her colleagues coming to her for _her_ scraps.

Why the Capitol building? Why blame Superman? Why _hate_ Superman? The question was asked earnestly now. How could anyone hate Superman?

Miriam shook her head. “The world is different now. Something has changed. I can feel it.”

Lois turned off the recorder on her phone. “Thank you for talking to me, and I'm sorry this happened to you. I'll follow up on the attackers. See if I can get you justice.”

She huffed at the word, turning her attention to the door.

“It is raining,” said Miriam. She grabbed an umbrella from behind the counter and gave it to Lois. 

“There's no need.”

“Take it. If there is no kindness left in this world, we must make our own.”

Lois's heart squeezed tight. She thanked Miriam and gave Ziad her card. He had a good mind. His patience and compassion for his mother impressed her. 

“Will you really tell our story?” He asked.

Lois woke that morning to mayhem and destruction over the radio. She'd looked at the photograph on her dresser, the selfie she made Clark take on one of their rare nights out. He pretended to keep it away from her and they played and laughed on the street. That was the great dichotomy. Superman was just a man. A good man.

“Yet somehow,” said the announcer that morning before dawn broke. “Amidst all this chaos, there is hope.”

Lois had set the framed photograph down and went to the research she started the night before, listening to the report on the arrival of the newest superhero in Europe.

Ziad stared up at Lois as the rain poured outside behind her. “No one cares.”

Lois opened the umbrella. “Can I see your phone?” she asked Miriam.

“I have my own phone,” Ziad said excitedly, taking out an iPhone out of his pocket. It was as big as his hand.

Lois smiled and gestured for it. Ziad looked to his mother and she nodded in approval. 

Wading through games and games and more games, Lois found the news app and downloaded the London Times. As expected, the headline was of Diana accompanied by enough blurry pictures to make her out.

Lois gave the phone back. “You only get a few articles a month. Planet's for free.” 

Miriam held her son close to her. Ziad's eyes were glued to the screen, his mouth in a wide open grin. 

The rain poured hard on her walk across Centennial Park. She carried that boy's smile with her all the way down the winding path. The subway would cut her travel time in half. One clean stop across town from West to East. Their apartment - _her_ apartment – a direct path to the Daily Planet. 

She slowed when she neared the monument, held her breath when she gazed at the gigantic severed stone head laying flat, turned away from her. It didn't look like him, not really, but she could never stop staring at it.


End file.
